The Arabian Nights: Reading 1

Sections read:

• Foreword
• Prologue
• The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey

Major Plot points

• Shahzaman finds wife cheating, and kills her
• Shahzaman sees Shahrayar's wife cheating with Mas'ud
• Shahzaman and Shahrayar plot to catch the wife
• the brothers decide to roam the world in the hopes of finding someone with worse luck
• Black demon
• woman sleeps with 100 men despite being locked in a box in an ocean
• Shahayar marries a new girl every night, and kills her in the morning
• Shahrazad wants to end the killing by having her father (the vizier) let her marry Shaharyar
• ox beaten down
• donkey tells the ox to pretend to be ill
• the merchant understood, and has the donkey used instead of the ox
• the donkey wishes to be back the way it was

My reaction

These characters are crazy. Finding your wife to be cheating on you does not mean you can kill her. Yes, it is not a positive thing. However, this is all a very gender biased way of looking at women. Just because some women choose not to be faithful, does not mean that all women are cunning and cheating. Men in the story can just go and have concubines, screw around a bit, and they are not killed. And just because you are angry at your one wife does not give you the right to marry a new girl every night, and then kill them in the morning. First of all, that is wasteful. Of your resources, your subjects, your future generations will suffer. No body even bothers to tell the king to chill, instead they just let him kill every girl in the area. What about women's rights and not wanting to be married off to their death, just because they might not stay faithful to their husband of one night. The characters in the story just really are irritating. They only think of themselves, not of the common people and how they are destroying their kingdom. Also, the king must really be a sex addict if he needs to sleep with a new woman each night. I realize that all of the girls are supposed to be virgins, but there has to be a serious risk of getting STDs, especially that one woman who slept with 100 men. She needs to control herself.